The hoyay in this film is subtle - I don't think I saw it on first viewing. I was focussed on the central, and overt, romance between Merton (Linus Roache) and Kate (Helena Bonham-Carter). It was when the DVD came out with a new picture that I was led to reconsider:
At first I thought: why have they posed it like some sort of menage-a-trois? There's no romance between Kate and Milly (played by Alison Elliott) in the film. But then I started thinking about the Kate/Milly relationship more closely, and I realised all the subtle ways in which the filmmakers do suggest an attraction. I don't think it's there in the original novel... but added homoerotic subtext, and indeed added complexity and subtlety of any sort, will never really seem out of place in a Henry James story.
